BELGOROD, Russia – Military trucks and armored personnel carriers spray-painted Z rumbled through intersections, and groups of men in camouflage swam through the streets and shopped for military items such as clothing. thermal lining. Refugees pouring in from territories in Ukraine have recently been lost to the enemy.
The sound of nearby explosions has become a regular phenomenon in Belgorod, 25 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, and anxious shop owners call police to report imaginary bomb threats, a sign of paranoia is beginning to spread. People expressed fear about what would happen next, with some even speculating that the Ukrainian army could take a step they have avoided for almost seven months and enter Russian territory.
“It’s as if they were here,” a gray-faced woman told a merchant at the city’s central market, after an explosion broke out.
President Vladimir V. Putin tried to keep life as normal as possible for most Russians as he waged his war in Ukraine, and turned hostility into a distant concept. But with Ukrainian forces now on the offensive, the people of Belgorod feel as if war has come to their doorstep.
Maksim, 21, a market trader, said: “There are so many rumors, people are scared.
He was selling thermal underwear, camouflage jackets and other sporting goods that were once used by hunters and fishermen but are now being bought by soldiers and their relatives. Like most of the other residents interviewed for this article, he declined to give his full name for fear of retribution.
The mood at the market, a series of stalls selling clothing, homeware and military equipment, was tense. Although the city of Belgorod was not directly attacked, Russia’s military air defenses are intercepting the missile from a distance. The sound of explosions rang out, and in the Komsomolsky neighborhood, homes and properties were being hit by falling debris.
On Monday, a teachers’ college, a shopping mall and a bus station conducted evacuation drills as officials assured local civilians worried that the drills were being carried out. plan in advance. Regional authorities were evacuating towns and villages along the border when they were shelled by Ukraine. Denis, a local businessman, recently paid someone to dig an 11-foot bomb shelter in his yard.
Many residents of the city fear increasing risks to their safety.
“We feel scared and especially difficult when you work with children,” said Ekaterina, 21, a kindergarten teacher, with a fragment of the classroom, said Ekaterina, 21, a kindergarten teacher. Seashells fell on the school grounds earlier this week. “The kids started running around screaming ‘missiles’ but we told them it was just thunder.”
While most Belgorod residents supported the government in Moscow and the war effort, some expressed disappointment that the rest of Russia was still living as if they were not waging an all-out war.
“How can they not be ashamed!” A middle-aged woman named Lyudmila, from the Komsomosky neighborhood, shouted.
“In Moscow, they’re celebrating City Day, while here blood is pouring,” she said, referring to citywide celebration last week honoring the founding day of the Russian capital, where there were fireworks and the inauguration of Mr. Putin’s big ferris wheel. “Here everyone is worried about our soldiers, while everyone is partying and drinking!”
Even supporters of the war effort expressed disappointment at the Kremlin’s insistence on calling this a “special military operation” when they could see it as an all-out war. Many wonder if there will be a draft, and if so, how soon.
Refugees from Ukraine are also turning to the realities of war.
Thousands of people from eastern Ukraine have arrived in recent months, especially last week when Ukrainian troops recaptured territory in the northeast held by Russian troops. Some worry about living under Ukrainian government control in Kyiv, while others, especially those who already hold Russian passports or work in the occupation government, fear being treated like strangers. collaborators, according to activists who are helping them leave.
Yulia Nemchinova, who is helping refugees in Belgorod, said: “They are trying to live their lives, working in hospitals, schools, shops, but that party understands this as collaborating with occupiers. Nemchinova, who has pro-Russian views, left her hometown of Kharkiv, just across the border, in 2014 after her husband ran into legal trouble with Ukrainian authorities.
But she also said that many people feel shocked and effectively betrayed by a Russian army they see as liberators, but that are now on the run in the face of an all-out Ukrainian assault. .
“They were promised: Russia is here forever,” Ms. Nemchinova said.
While journalists and investigators are uncovering evidence of atrocities and human rights violations of the Russians during the occupationthose who recently fled to Belgorod say that the retreating Russian troops told them to leave because of the possibility of retaliation.
In interviews in Belgorod, people fleeing territory recently recaptured by Ukraine said they were afraid that when Ukrainian troops entered the local government building, soldiers would find a list of those who had been killed. receive employment or humanitarian assistance from the Russian provisional authorities and come across. penalty for cooperation. People are also scared because Ukraine has passed a law punishing coordination with the occupying authorities from 10 to 15 years in prison.
A woman named Irina said her boyfriend, a former Ukrainian border guard, posted his personal information in a Telegram group for the purpose of naming collaborators.
Irina, 18, said in an interview at a clothing bank, where newly arrived refugees are collecting clothes and food. Her mother and sister remain in their village, and she says she hopes the Russians will re-engage it soon.
In Belgorod, a city of 400,000 people, the fear of Ukrainians across the border has ceased to exist a decade ago. For years, Russians in Belgorod regularly traveled 50 miles to Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city, with a population of 2 million before the war – to party, dine and shop. Many families are separated across the border.
Oleg Ksenov, 41, a restaurateur, who has spent the past months evacuating people from battlefields in Ukraine and taking them to Russia, said: “Belgorod was completely shocked. “We just love Kharkiv.”
Viktoriya, 50, who owns a cafe and bakery in the city, says Kharkiv is a “supermarket” in the minds of every Belgorod.
“We have a joke: If you want to meet people from Belgorod, go to the Stargorod restaurant in Kharkiv for the weekend,” she said.
The relationship worked both ways. In the years after Russia incited a separatist war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Ukraine has imposed stricter laws on speaking Ukrainian rather than Russian in public. That has motivated Russian-speaking people from Kharkiv to come to Belgorod to watch movies in Russian, said Denis, the 44-year-old businessman.
Now the two cities are effectively separated by a front line.
“It’s a tragedy of the tectonic rate,” he said. “It touches everyone from Belgorod. Every family is connected to Ukraine”.
His aunt Larisa had just arrived over the weekend from Liman, a city in the Donetsk region occupied by Russian troops at the end of May. Since then, it has had no electricity, gas or running water, and she said more than 80% of the housing stock has been destroyed.
In early May, a missile – she did not know from which military, although she blamed Ukraine – hit her apartment building. Then, at the end of the month, the Russians arrived.
“I have been waiting for them with great happiness,” says Larisa, 74, in surzhik, a dialect mixed between Ukrainian and Russian.
Now her house is a heavy front-line scene. She said she had trouble walking and struggled to get to the basement every time the air raid sirens sounded.
As the fighting drew closer, she said, she knew she had to get out, because she didn’t want to be controlled by Kyiv anymore and was scared.
Mr. Ksenov, who was born in Kharkiv but made Belgorod his hometown more than a decade ago, has devoted his time to helping civilians fleeing from Ukraine to Russia. He worries about what will happen to the people of the border areas of both countries in the long term.
“This carnage will eventually end,” he said of the war, in an interview at his restaurant, which has plywood covering the windows in case of bombing.
“But who will we be? How will we look into each other’s eyes? “
Anastasia Trofimova contributed reporting.
